Chapter Twenty-Five
She had died?
“All I remember was a dream,” she told Nikolai as he stoked the fire to life in the hearth.
Sienna sat on her sofa with a quilt wrapped tightly around her. Nikolai had taken it from her bed and covered her body the second they’d walked inside her freezing cottage. He’d gone outside and found a few dry logs and kindling. The chill slowly melted away, and yet Nikolai hadn’t looked at her once since they’d come inside.
He stared into the hearth, one arm propped on the mantel, his shoulders bunched, his head ducked low. “What happened in the dream?”
“I wandered through a misty wood. All I could hear was your voice calling me.” She fisted her hands in the edges of the quilt. “But I couldn’t find you.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t even look at her.
“Finally, I stumbled into a meadow where your voice seemed to emanate from a silver-white tree. When I touched it, my entire body caught on fire. That was all I remembered before waking up on the…on the hartstone.” She longed for him to look at her, to touch her, to hold her. “What did the hartstone do to me? Besides bring me back. I feel different.”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice dragging on gravel and rock.
Silence deepened between them. Gilded by firelight, his profile was sharp, his lips pressed tight, his expression grim and distant.
“Are you—are you all right?”
He scoffed and finally turned to her. She swallowed hard at the tormented expression contorting his face.
“Are you angry with me?”
“Angry with you?” His tone was full of menace, yet he didn’t move from the mantel. “I want to race back to Dale’s Peak and burn alive every man, woman, and child who stood there and watched what happened to you. I want to hunt down that bloody bastard Volkov and his men and rip their fucking throats out with my bare teeth. I want to murder the world and bathe in their blood, and still, it wouldn’t be punishment enough.” His voice trembled with rising fury. His vocals strained with quaking rage. “Not nearly enough.”
Sienna stood and approached him slowly, for he seemed about to bolt at any minute. Or combust with boiling rage. She lifted a hand from under the quilt.
He followed her hand as if it were a snake about to strike. He was afraid.
“Shhh.” She reached out and swept a lock of hair away from his stern brow. His eyes slid closed, and he exhaled a shaky breath. “Let the anger go, Nikolai.”
“I bloody can’t.” Voice still quivering, his chest rose and fell quickly, and his eyes remained closed.
“Yes, you can,” she soothed. She slid one hand to cup his gaunt cheek. He’d worn himself out, saving her, his paleness more striking now that she could see him in the light. She lifted her other hand, letting the quilt drop to the floor. Wrapping his nape with a soothing caress of her nails, she dragged him closer.
At first unyielding, he let her pull his head down. She combed her fingers through his silky hair and brushed an airy kiss over his lips. His eyes popped open, gleaming bright with desperation. Need.
Still not moving a hand to touch her, he said, “You should rest.”
“No.” She unbuttoned his top button, then worked her way down in a slow line. His gaze followed her fingers. “I died, Nikolai. And by some miracle have been brought back to life. I do not need rest.” She tried to pull his shirt off, but he wouldn’t move his arm from the mantel. “I could use your help here.”
“What are you doing?”
“I thought it was quite clear. I’m trying to remove your clothes so I can take you to my bed.”
“Sienna…” He clenched his jaw and deepened his frown. “I won’t take you. Not so soon after Volkov, after—”
She stopped him with a finger to his lips. “He didn’t violate me in that way. He took only my blood.” She glanced down at her bare body. “As you can see, my body is healed. But my heart is not. And here I am, begging you to touch me. To make good on your promise.”
“What promise is that?” he asked, voice a husky roll of thunder, his body so rigid and his arm so stiff on the mantel as if he were holding up the wall, the world, and gravity itself purely by sheer will.
“In the widow’s house. You promised to give me pleasure to take away the pain.”
He released a shaky breath, his expression crashing into sorrow. Perhaps she shouldn’t have reminded him of that moment, the last precious moment they shared before their nightmare began.
“I’m raw, Sienna. Scraped from the inside out. I held your lifeless body in my arms a few hours ago.”
“Then hold me alive…now. And let me heal you, Nikolai.”
“I can’t be gentle.”
“Who said I wanted gentle?”
“I don’t trust myself.”
She smiled and closed the space between them, wrapping her arms around his waist and under his unbuttoned shirt, his body taut, unyielding. She pressed her soft curves against his hard frame. “I trust you.”
He breathed her name on a long sigh. “Sienna.” Then he finally moved. He swept her hair off of one shoulder where he grazed an open-mouthed kiss, hot and wet. Sienna angled her head in the other direction, inviting him to taste, to bite. But he didn’t.
“More, Nikolai.”
She knew he still held himself back, fearing to hurt her in some way. What he didn’t understand was that she was stronger than she’d ever been. The hartstone had breathed fire into her veins, which now lit up her senses to a heightened level. Her skin ached, craving the sensation of friction, hungering for him to heal her in the only way he could. But the man—obstinate, with willpower of iron—would not give in to the passion simmering between them, begging to be released.
“Fine,” she whispered. She’d have to show him she had determination of her own to match his. She needed to do something dramatic, to make him understand. Dropping to her knees, she undid the lacings of his trousers.
“Sienna,” he warned.
She flicked him a glare. “I want you, Nikolai.” She pulled free the last lacing. “I need you.” She freed his cock—full and thick. He couldn’t deny he didn’t feel the same desire. She had no experience in this realm at all, but instincts took over, the innate need to taste him overriding all sense and reason. Gripping him at the base of his shaft, she opened her mouth on the tip.
“Fucking hell.” He clenched a fist into her hair. Instead of pulling away, he urged her on, pumping forward slowly on a hiss.
She moaned, staring up at him and holding his burning gaze. His mouth gaped, the tips of his sharpened fangs long and protruding.
Volkov had filled her with fear and loathing with his toxin, but the hartstone had washed that all away—death and fear in one. She yearned for Nikolai to mark her deep. She surged forward, sliding her mouth on a groan.
Before she knew what had happened, she was off the floor and on her back in the bed. Nikolai knelt above her and stripped away his shirt, revealing his sculpted abdomen. His trousers hung loose on his hips, his cock protruding straight up against his belly.
“Put your hands behind your head under the pillow.”
His command was rough and razor-sharp. She obeyed.
“Spread your legs for me, Sienna.”
Already breathless, she crooked her knees in obedience.
He shook his head, gaze wandering south to her sex. “Wider.”
Heat flushed up her chest and into her cheeks.
“Wider, sweetheart. You’re going to lay yourself bare and give it all to me. Then I’ll give it all back.”
Licking her lips, her mouth gone dry, she let her legs fall open till her knees hit the mattress. Completely and utterly exposed.
“Right there. That’s what I want.”
He gripped his cock and pumped in a slow rhythm, then fell forward on his other arm and lowered his body. He brushed his hard chest over her sensitive breasts, teasing her nipples into tight peaks. Dipping his head toward her neck, he whispered, “Don’t move your hands from beneath the pillows, no matter how badly you want to.”
She clenched her fists, trying to obey.
“I want to be in control of every sensation you feel. Tell me you understand.” He grazed the head of his cock through the folds of her sex. “So wet already.”
She whimpered.
“I didn’t hear you, Sienna.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I understand.”
His voice dropped another octave. “Good.”
Beginning under her jaw, he scraped his fangs down the side of her neck, then up the slope of one breast, letting one canine prick her sensitive nipple. She gasped and instinctually raised her knees to squeeze her legs together. He lifted up with a warning look.
“I want your knees flat against the mattress and your legs wide, sweet Sienna.”
She bit her lip, nodded, and did as he demanded, her blood stirring hotter to his rough commands. Then he lowered down and sucked her nipple hard, growling when she arched her back and pressed closer.
“Nikolai,” she murmured, squirming beneath him.
He circled around the peak with his tongue, then lifted up and blew, the cool wetness drawing low in her belly. She watched him as he licked two of his fingers, then set to work between her legs, rolling the nub between them.
Her mouth dropped open on a gasp while she pulled one arm partly free. He froze.
“Damn,” she muttered and thrust it back beneath the pillow.
“Good girl.” He thrust two fingers inside her.
Arching her neck, she begged, “Please. Please.”
“What do you want, sweet Sienna?”
“I want you inside of me. All of you.”
Suddenly he pulled his hand away and leveraged over her, his thick cock at her entrance. “Don’t move,” he commanded, pushing inside of her just an inch.
She wanted to pull her hands free and claw down his back, wanted to wrap her ankles around his thighs and rock her hips up into him and take him deeper. Instead, she held perfectly still, breathing hot, heavy breaths.
He glided his lips along the underside of her jaw, a growl vibrating in his chest. “I can smell your arousal.” He trailed his tongue down her throat. “All for me.”
“Yes,” she whispered, her nails cutting into her palm where she squeezed her fists tight.
“You are mine, Sienna.” He nuzzled under her ear with a soft caress of lips, but his voice was nowhere near gentle. “From now…until death. Whenever that may be. You are mine.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but then he thrust his cock deep and plunged his fangs into her neck. She sucked in a gasping breath. His warm, erotic elixir flowed straight to her core. He pounded hard over and over with fierce thrusts, keeping his fangs embedded in her skin as he sucked deep and long. A feral growl rumbled from his chest, vibrating against hers.
“Nikolai!” An orgasm ripped through her body. Too hard, too fast. She couldn’t help but squeeze her legs together, trapping his hips and whimpering her release. He drove hard and held still while the waves crashed through her. She finally pulled her arms from beneath the pillow and clutched his flexed biceps.
Catching her breath, she licked her lips and gave her own command. “Roll over, Nikolai. It’s my turn.”